Ontario NDP leader serves cake to mark 1,000 days of RCMP Greenbelt probe

Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles continued her push for more transparency about the RCMP investigation into the Ford government’s 2022 Greenbelt scandal and she pulled out an actual cake to do it.

Stiles brought out the cake at Queen’s Park on Wednesday to mark 1,000 days since the RCMP launched its probe into Premier Doug Ford’s government.

She wants to know more details about where the investigation stands, as nearly three years have gone by with no update.

“When it comes to corruption Doug Ford takes the cake,” says Stiles. “How many other premiers in Ontario’s history can say that the RCMP has been investigating them for three years.”

The RCMP began a criminal investigation in October 2023 after the Ford government announced it would remove land from the protected Greenbelt to build more homes.

Ford eventually backtracked the plan and apologized after public backlash and the resignation of two ministers.

The province’s Auditor General later found that the plan to remove land from the Greenbelt favoured developers with ties to the housing minister’s chief of staff.

“The fact that this has taken over a thousand days now … maybe there’s more there than we even imagined,” says Stiles.

Hamilton was a major focus in the Greenbelt scandal when the Ford government used a Minister’s Zoning Order to shoot down city councilors decision not to expand its urban boundary into Greenbelt land in the Ancaster – Mount Hope region.

“We saw significant lands that would have been removed and potentially developed on that are prime agricultural lands that are productive, that is creating food that we eat here in this province,” says Environment Hamilton’s Executive Director Ian Borsuk.

“It’s really important to remind Ontarians that this provincial government not only has utterly failed to build any new housing, that at the same time they have actually crossed the line into potential criminal behaviour.”

Stiles also pointed to the recent changes made to the province’s Freedom of Information laws, which she says will make it more difficult for the media and Ontario citizens to get information.

Meanwhile, Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser says the Greenbelt scandal is just one of many scandals over the past three years, pointing to the Skills Development Fund and the so-called “gravy plane” controversy.

“The recurring theme, the thread that goes through all of them is, there is a small group of people who benefit from these government scandals, these government programs. They’re hand picked, they’re donors, they’re friends, they’re Tory insiders, they’re lobbyists,” says Fraser.

Fraser says he understands why the RCMP investigation has taken so long.

“It involved dozens of people, literally thousands of records. They’re complicated things. You need to get it right,” says Fraser.

In a statement to CHCH News, the RCMP says the investigation is ongoing and that they cannot provide information to protect the integrity of the investigation.

CHCH News also reached out to Premier Ford’s government for comment, but have not heard back.